ETSU volleyball gets an at large bid to the NCAA tournament and will face Purdue in the first round. Glad they made it, they surely deserved with the #34 ranking.

(11-25-2018 09:14 PM)Bucster Wrote:  ETSU volleyball gets an at large bid to the NCAA tournament and will face Purdue in the first round. Glad they made it, they surely deserved with the #34 ranking.

Looks like Purdue was good enough to make the tournament, but not good enough to get ranked in the tournament. I'm not really that knowledgeable about women's volleyball, but here's hoping that they do well. I don't expect a championship banner anywhere, but a 1st round upset would be pretty cool.

For those that don't follow volleyball, this is the third time ETSU has advanced to the NCAA Tournament, also appearing in 2012 and 2017, and the first time ever that any SoCon Women's Volleyball team has received an at-large bid.

In 2012 and 2017 ETSU earned a bid and ended up in the Kentucky regionals, and played the Wildcats themselves. No need to tell you all how that turned out. Nothing is guaranteed, but by not having to face the host team right out of the gate, who knows, maybe the third time will be the charm.

(11-25-2018 11:02 PM)ETSUfan#2 Wrote:  Looks like Purdue was good enough to make the tournament, but not good enough to get ranked in the tournament. I'm not really that knowledgeable about women's volleyball, but here's hoping that they do well. I don't expect a championship banner anywhere, but a 1st round upset would be pretty cool.

The previous two times ETSU went to the tournament they faced a ranked/seeded opponent. So I think it bodes well for an upset that they are not facing a ranked team. Like you I don't know a lot about volleyball but the Big 10 does seem to be one of the stronger if not the strongest conference. I still like their chances though since they beat two top 25 teams in the tournament, including Washington State who got a ranked/seed in the tournament.

Impressive that they are the first Socon team to ever receive an at-large, but they got it by playing a tough schedule and winning some of those tough games.

Via RPI, ETSU is "ranked" 34th. Purdue tied for 16th with Creighton. (So we can figure that if the seedings went below 16, they would likely have been one of the next ones.) Samford way down at 121. I haven't been keeping up with their RPI, but I think it's safe to say that the loss to Samford in the SoCon finals hurt their RPI quite a bit.

Washington St., who the Bucs beat, was seeded 16th overall, with an RPI ranking of 12th. Tennessee, who we edged 3-2, has an RPI of 29, with no seeding in the tournament. Cincinnati, who we lost to, 3-2, has an RPI of 23 and also did not get a seed. South Carolina, who took us down 3-0, didn't get seeded with an RPI of 32.
Duke, who we beat 3-1, got in unseeded with an RPI of 48 with only a 14-11 record from the weak-this-year ACC. Western KY, who trounced us 3-0, did not get in with a 62 RPI, so that loss way back in Sept. hurt, too. The High Point loss I'm sure hurt as well, but maybe not as much as it appeared at the time, as they finished with an RPI of 56 and managed to get in. (The next highest Big South team RPI-wise was Radford at 107.)

All-in-all, I think the Purdue match-up is probably a fair one, but it sure ain't gonna be a picnic.

That said (from an NCAA site):

"The two teams most likely to thwart those opportunities are the reigning national champion, No. 7 Nebraska, and No. 10 Kentucky. Those two teams could meet in the Big Ten regional semifinals after last season’s regional final matchup. For an unseeded sleeper, it has to be Purdue which has been a top-15 team pretty much all season."

For those who missed it last night:

ETSU's season ends against the Boilermakers

What's amazing is that, like all sports other than men's hoops, none of the opponents have names.

Oh, wait! They do!

Purdue's version of what transpired

It's rather astonishing that both account refer to the same match - which highlights the problems with Mike White's hagiographic style. Seems like whoever was writing for the Boilermakers has a similar, but less severe problem. But at least the Purdue version was able to name some of the Bucs.

Quotes from Purdue's coach about Leah Clayton and Hayley Bush:

quotes from Purdue's coach

Congrats Bucs on a GREAT season!!

For those who missed it last night:

ETSU's season ends against the Boilermakers

What's amazing is that, like all sports other than men's hoops, none of the opponents have names.

Oh, wait! They do!

Purdue's version of what transpired

It's rather astonishing that both account refer to the same match - which highlights the problems with Mike White's hagiographic style. Seems like whoever was writing for the Boilermakers has a similar, but less severe problem. But at least the Purdue version was able to name some of the Bucs.

Quotes from Purdue's coach about Leah Clayton and Hayley Bush:

quotes from Purdue's coach

Congrats Bucs on a GREAT season!!

Looks like we are going to be looking for a new coach- Devine has accepted the Alabama coaching job.

Not only that, but we've lost arguably our best player, Leah Clayton, who the Purdue coach praised after the NCAA tournament game. While ETSU's site chooses not to report on the defection (WJHL did a short story on it), the CU Buffaloes fill in the gap:

Leah Clayton heads west

I believe that will leave only 2 starters returning (if indeed they do). Oh well, it was likely gonna be some degree of rebuilding, anyway.